The present invention relates to an absorption cooling and heating apparatus and method, operating according to an absorption refrigeration cycle by utilizing a refrigerant and an absorber liquid, in which a cooling cycle or a heating cycle can be alternately selected and effected.
In conventional apparatus and methods of this kind, such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publications Nos. 52(1977)-6894 and 52(1977)-6895, a refrigerant is mixed into a concentrated solution system. However, certain deficiencies exist in the conventional apparatus and methods of this kind, such as disclosed in the above-noted Japanese Patent Publications.
First of all, in order to obtain a hot liquid such as water of relatively high temperature, it is necessary to raise the condensation temperature by raising the vapor pressure in a generator. Therefore, it has been necessary to dilute the concentration of the solution within the generator. However, the concentration of the solution within the generator cannot be diluted that much, so that the temperature of the hot liquid such as water cannot be raised very high by this procedure.
Therefore, in order to raise the temperature of the hot water even higher, it has been necessary to lower the concentration of the solution released from an absorber, i.e. the standard concentration of the solution. A complicated control mechanism which changes the level of the refrigerant in an evaporator when cooling or heating, and which transfers much refrigerant to the absorber side thereof when heating, is required.
Moreover, when refrigerant is mixed with the concentrated solution, striking unevenness of admixture results. This easily causes corrosion within the apparatus, and also generates noise when the refrigerant, especially in relatively large amounts, is absorbed into the concentrated solution itself.